Conviction Jewish institutions and contexts Other Jewish institution or hearing Jerusalem, Israel · 2024

Israel: seminary 'cult' head convicted of holding women in slavery-like conditions

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

headmaster of the 'Be'er Miriam' women's seminary, Sha'arei Chesed

Organization

'Be'er Miriam' seminary, Jerusalem

Spiritual nexus

Young women recruited into a seminary whose head controlled their contact with the world — religious instruction as the architecture of captivity.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2024-02-21 · conviction on plea; agreed lenient sentence

Jerusalem District Court, Israel. Aharon Ramati, headmaster of the 'Be'er Miriam' seminary — long described in Israeli reporting as a cult recruiting young women — was convicted on his plea on 21 February 2024 of holding persons in conditions of slavery, with eleven victims in the retained count out of roughly thirty women drawn into the seminary between 2009 and 2015. Under the plea arrangement he received about nine months of community service and ₪110,000 in compensation — a sentence widely criticised as lenient.

Primary record

national newspaper court reporting plea report Haaretz: conviction on plea, 21 Feb. 2024.: Paper-of-record report of the conviction.
national newspaper court reporting case report Ynet: the Be'er Miriam case and disposition.: Independent corroboration.

Related record